WellesleyWeston Magazine

SUMMER 2014

Launched in 2005, WellesleyWeston Magazine is a quarterly publication tailored to Wellesley and Weston residents and edited to enrich the experience of living in two of Massachusetts' most desirable communities.

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an interview with david mccullough, jr.
with their talents and advantages. He ended his now famous speech
with a call to action:
Exercise free will and creative, independent thought not for the satis-
factions they will bring you, but for the good they will do others, the
rest of the 6.8 billion—and those who follow them. And then you too
will discover the great and curious truth of the human experience is
that selflessness is the best thing you can do for yourself. The sweetest
"A middle-aged, mild-mannered
English teacher doesn't expect
limousines in his driveway or TV
cameras aimed at him."
joys of life, then, come only with the recog-
nition that you're not special. Because
everyone is. Congratulations. Good luck.
Make for yourselves, please, for your sake
and for ours, extraordinary lives.
Ecco, the publisher of McCullough's book,
describes it as, "a love letter to students and
parents as well as a guide to a truly fulfilling
life." In keeping with this English teacher's
tried-and-true lessons on how to engage
readers, the publisher entices us with both a
provocative context and thesis for the book:
"The intense pressure to excel discourages
kids from taking chances, failing, and learn-
ing empathy and self-confidence from those
failures…By acknowledging that the world
is indifferent to them, McCullough takes
pressure off of students to be extraordinary
achievers and instead exhorts them to roll up
their sleeves and do something useful with
their advantages."
Back in his classroom at Wellesley High,
David McCullough, Jr. shared his perspec-
tive with WellesleyWeston Magazine on teens
today and on You Are Not Special…and Other
Encouragements, released in April 2014.
060-069_WWMb14_f2f_McCullough_v4_WWM_interview 4/24/14 2:11 PM Page 62